The Pishon is mentioned in the Biblical Genesis (2:11) as one of four rivers branching off from a single river within the Eden. The river is described as encircling "the entire land of Havilah", now associated with North West Yemen (see Table of Nations).

Since the only two identified rivers said to issue forth from Eden, the Tigris (Hiddekel, from Genesis 2:14) and the Euphrates, do not rise in the same place, it can be assumed that either the topography of the area has changed or the geographical notions of the Genesis writer or writers were inaccurate. However, some scholars have questioned English translations that say the rivers issued forth from Eden, and claim improved renderings are more flexible in their description, thereby allowing Eden to be a confluence point for four rivers originating elsewhere.

Christian fundamentalists have sometimes appealed to the effects of the Noachian Flood to explain the seeming disappearance of the Pishon river and the change in the upper courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates. But if the "land of Havilah" does indeed refer to Yemen, then the Pishon may correspond to an ancient dry riverbed that terminated in the Persian Gulf. Evidence of this river is visible in satellite photos and a telltale, fan-shaped delta of gravel deposits at the old river mouth.

Together with the Tigris, the river Pishon is briefly mentioned in the apocryphal work of Ecclesiasticus (24:35), but this reference throws no more light on the location of the river.

Torah places